


The Getaway Mile

by manipulant



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys, M/M, Multi, Prison, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manipulant/pseuds/manipulant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Whatever happened to the fifth Killjoy?</i></p><p>Honestly, Bob feels kind of sorry for the poor guys working him over, because he knows that when they go back in to report their progress, they’re going to get some kind of talking-to for not giving one hundred and ten percent. He’ll cheerfully trade a couple of bruises and loose teeth for his autonomy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Getaway Mile

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a companion piece to [Keeping a Reflection of You in Hindsight](http://community.livejournal.com/bandomstuffsit/11603.html), which was written for [](http://bandomstuffsit.livejournal.com/profile)[**bandomstuffsit**](http://bandomstuffsit.livejournal.com/). You'll probably want to read that one first. Title taken from "Bulletproof Heart," because I am unoriginal. Many thanks to [](http://corvide.livejournal.com/profile)[**corvide**](http://corvide.livejournal.com/) and [](http://reni-days.livejournal.com/profile)[**reni_days**](http://reni-days.livejournal.com/), who looked over this for me! ♥

  
  
When he comes to, Bob has a mouthful of sand and blood, mixing to create a godawful _paste_ in his mouth. He rolls to his side and spits, and retches, and when he finally manages to squint his eyes open to the harsh sunlight, the first thing he sees is the outline of one of Korse’s goons, tapping his ray gun against his gloved hand.

Bob sneers, and then, when his eyes roll back into his head a little, Bob sees a blurb of grey and feels lace against his cheek, the touch of an unnaturally cool palm to his skin. “Fuck you,” he manages, wincing because - shit, he’s pretty sure he’s cracked a couple of ribs. Breathing is kind of a chore. He feels sort of cold even though it’s gotta be pushing 107, with the sun so high in the sky.

“Oh, now, Robert,” Korse murmurs, close ( _too close too close TOO CLOSE_ ) to his skin. “Let’s not get off on the wrong foot.” He brushes cool fingers down the length of Bob’s jaw, his lips curling into a terrible smirk. Bob struggles, and suddenly there are hands holding him down.

“Not my name,” Bob mutters, panting a little, squeezing his eyes shut as pain shocks up and down his chest. He’s still struggling, damn it, still struggling even when Korse stands, directs his dracs to tug Bob up so only the tips of his shoes are brushing the dirt. He gasps for breath, and takes a few quick looks around, scanning the horizon, and feels his stomach twist and drop when there’s just...nothing.

Not even any tire tracks.

He’d feel better if he could see where the guys managed to get away, at least.

“Robert Bryar, former BL/ind computer programmer and technical analyst, missing since July 2013, whereabouts unknown. Born in Chicago, Illinois, publicly educated. Middling student, better with his hands than academic study. Son of - do you need me to go on?” Korse asked, flipping through a manila folder that he’d produced from somewhere on his person, and Bob almost _laughed_ , because if that just wasn’t Korse all over. Concerned with keeping the paperwork in order during a firestorm in the desert. “Any of this ringing any _bells_?” he asks, smiling that damn smile again. “Robert?”

Bob blinks up at him and smiles back, his grin widening at the look of disgust that flits over Korse’s face. He can still taste sand and bile and blood, gritty and raw in his mouth, and he knows he must look a mess.

“My name,” he says calmly, almost politely, because Bob Motherfucking Bryar has never been one for raised voices or scenes - explosions and fireworks and noisebombs, hell yeah, but never scenes, “is Bullet Proof.”

  
-

  
They put him in confinement, leave him there for - he’s not sure how long, honestly. They never shut the lights off. From the number of meals he gets (thirty-one, each one the same thin porridge as the last time so he’s never sure if it’s breakfast or dinner), he’s pretty sure he’s been in for at least a week.

It’s uneventful. For the first time in his life, Bob is _grateful_ and not ashamed of his past as a BL/ind drone, because it means that he’s already familiar with the bloodless, mindless, hopeless environment in which he finds himself. He knows the assholes who deliver his food are just trying to make it to clock-out, just trying not to get ghosted for another day. He knows the idiots who come to rough him up every so often are only doing it because their managers want to keep their numbers up and they’re hoping Bob will crack during their shift, so they can take credit for it.

Honestly, he feels kind of sorry for the poor guys working him over, because he knows that when they go back in to report their progress, they’re going to get some kind of talking-to for _not giving one hundred and ten percent_. He’ll cheerfully trade a couple of bruises and loose teeth for his autonomy.

After a while, though, the porridge really starts to get on his nerves. That, and the one desk guard who manages to hum both out of tune and out of rhythm.

So, the next time the guards come in to administer their motivational face-pounding, Bob carefully lifts the wristwatch off the bigger one’s arm. The desk guard with the beard always falls asleep halfway through his shift, and now armed with the makeshift mirror of the back of the watch, Bob can finally see where the keypad is to his cell door.

They’re still using the same backward tonal scale for the locks that _Bob set up_ when he was a trainee, so he’s had the combination memorized since Meal Three. He plugs it in, steps back, waits for the door to open, knocks the desk guard out and drags him into the cell, steals his clothes and his ID badge, and walks out the main doors of BL/ind without once looking over his shoulder.

Easy.

  
-

  
What’s not especially easy is the desert that surrounds Battery City (formerly Los Angeles, but the powers that be had found the references to spiritual beings somewhat inappropriate). Bob manages to tip over a vending machine at a rest stop just on the outskirts of town, and he grabs a couple of bottles of soda and water, and some chips, but it’s not enough. He walks due east for three days, determined, before he drinks the last sip of water and squints into the distance and sighs, and then sits down on the hot sand. He watches the sun set, and then turns and faces east again, and tells himself that in the morning, he is _going_ to see the sun rise.

He can feel rushing in his ears when he lies down, and even though he knows it’s from dehydration, it’s still sort of soothing. Bob closes his eyes, and thinks of a red shock of hair, and no tire tracks, and moody silences and bright laughter, and eventually he drifts off.

  
-

  
 _”Did you know, Robert,” Korse says while lounging on Bob’s cot, “that my associate, the man who tagged you, has gone missing?”_

 _“Check under the sofa?” he asks genially, before doubling over as one of the goons slams his fist into Bob’s stomach. He gasps for air and sags against where they’re holding him up by his arms._

 _“It’s very curious,” Korse murmurs, frowning down at his hands. “After all, it wasn’t like it was_ his _actions that led you here. The poor man. Just a victim of circumstance. He has two children, you know.”_

 _“‘Has’ or ‘had’?” Bob spits, his chest still heaving._

 _“I don’t really know,” Korse sighs. Then he sucks his teeth. “Hard to say.”_

 _“He probably just defected,” Bob manages, starting to straighten up. “Look on the bright side.”_

 _Korse gives him a thin, colorless smile. “Did you know,” he says, the smile spreading, “that we searched a twenty-five-mile radius from the location you were taken in? And that we didn’t find_ anything _? Not a single tire track, a single cigarette butt, a single...” his mouth twists a little over the following words, “sweets wrapper?”_

 _Bob blinks, and then frowns a little, his mind going blank. Korse’s smile widens._

 _“Curious.”_

  
-

  
A punch to the shoulder wakes him up. Bob opens his eyes and immediately wishes he hadn’t - the pounding behind his skull begins immediately; he swears it’s in sync with his heartbeat. He blinks, and then jolts as his eyes adjust to the black night sky and focus on the outline of a person hovering over him. _Shit_.

“Hey, man,” the figure tells him, patting him on the shoulder again. “Sorry about that, you didn’t want to wake up for _anything_.”

Bob frowns a little, and closes his eyes again. He can feel his hands still shaking from the burst of adrenalin. “Yeah. Take the hint,” he mumbles.

“Never been any good at that,” the guy says regretfully. “I’m Pete, by the way.”

“The hell are you doing out here?” Bob asks, despite not feeling very interested.

“Trying to get a bunch of asshole vamps killed the fuck dead for dabbling in human trafficking. What the hell are _you_ doing out here?”

Bob blinks his eyes open and actually _looks_ at Pete, taking in his weird, too wide smile and the way he can’t seem to stay still. And then he notices the fangs. “Um. Broke out of Battery City.”

“Shit, dude, there’s nothing but desert around Battery City.”

“Yeah, that was a real shock,” Bob grumps, managing to sit up, though he does have to put his hands to his head to keep it from falling to pieces. “I’d heard it was all one big water park til you hit the Mississippi.”

There’s a sharp bark of laughter, and then Bob feels arms sliding underneath his armpits, heaving him up. His head swims, and he struggles a little, but jesus, the little fucker is _strong_. “Hey, what - “

“Dude. I’m not about to leave you out here to kick it in the desert, that’s bullshit. I got a car over the next hill, come on. I’ll take you into town, at least.”

Bob grumbles, but tries to put his feet underneath himself, at least. “Town?”

“Vegas, man.” Pete grins at him, sharp incisors flashing again. “Let’s get going, sun-up’s in a couple of hours and I don’t want to make a dash for the house.”

“...Vegas.” A fair stone’s-throw from Bakersfield, then. Bob frowns, and tries to shuffle along beside him.

“The Glorious City-State Of, yeah.” Pete gives up on trying to help Bob along, and pretty much just tugs him into a very unlikely piggyback situation. “And I’m expecting you to do your part and keep me entertained on the ride back, dude. Rules of the road.”

Bob sighs, and closes his eyes, his head still swimming. “I’ll do my best,” he promises, and tries not to think of the last time he said that, and how miserably he’d failed.

  
-

  
Long story short, he stays with Pete. Wentz has a good set-up going, with his immortality and his do-gooding and his Patrick. Brendon’s in eighth grade and he’s the most clingy, obnoxious little asshole Bob’s ever met. (Since Frank, anyway.) Bob takes to him immediately.

He and Patrick tend to talk about drums and Chicago, when Patrick’s awake. He and Pete talk about ley-lines and the best way to plan desert escape routes. Occasionally, he finds himself in the driver’s seat while Pete and a couple of cronies go to the border’s edge and try to save however many refugees they can squeeze into the car. Sometimes he threatens to rent a van, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it.

He was always either middle in the backseat of the Trans Am, his arm slung over Mikey’s shoulder, his gun pointing out the back of where the rear window should’ve been. Or he was riding shotgun in the van, hanging halfway out of the window and firing rounds while Show Pony was huddled up with baby girl in the middle aisle. It makes him feel better to drive for Pete - it’s the one place in a vehicle that doesn’t really have any memories attached.

  
One night, he searches and searches while the others wait, and he finally finds Pete kneeling beside the lifeless body of a girl. She looks to have been about twelve, and the bite marks on her neck are still vivid and bruised, though the rest of her is pale and still. He reaches down to put his hand on Pete’s shoulder, and isn’t very surprised when Pete shrugs him off.

“It isn’t your fault,” he says fruitlessly. Pete doesn’t move. “Pete, it isn’t.”

“I know that,” Pete snaps, curling over on himself a little. “It doesn’t make it any better. If I had been here - “

“Well, you weren’t,” Bob snaps back. He can feel his cheeks start to flush, and his hands shake a little. “You can’t always be everywhere saving everyone, no matter how much time you put into it. She doesn’t blame you for that. You try your hardest and you do more than anyone else is doing, so you shouldn’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t help. It’s a waste of time that you could be spending helping others.” He pauses, thinking for a second or two. “So get up off your ass and do that, instead.”

Pete turns around to look at him for a little while, unnaturally still. “Where did that come from?” he asks quietly, looking sort of respectful of Bob, all of a sudden. “And who was it meant for?”

Bob frowns and folds his arms, his heart thumping loudly in his chest and in his ears. Eventually, Pete turns to look back at the girl on the ground. “We shouldn’t leave her here like this.”

“Tomorrow morning I’ll come out and bury her,” Bob promises. He reaches his hand back out to Pete’s shoulder, and Pete lets him keep it there, this time. “Come on, the sun’s coming up in an hour.”

  
-

  
The years pass. Ashlee shows up. She and Brendon graduate, and then Ashlee has another interesting sort of graduation. Bob feels uncomfortable around her for the next few months, until she comes to see him in the garage in the middle of the day, and gives him a look so sad and _human_ that he forgets she’s anything different from the hellion she was on day one, all red hair and angry laughter and a stream of profanities for the people telling her everything she couldn’t do.

He doesn’t really think about _before_. Those days take on a too-bright, gritty, whited out haze in his mind. He realizes one day, while he’s looking at the calendar, that it’s baby girl’s birthday, and when he counts back the years he realizes she’s turning fourteen. He closes his eyes and _hopes_ very strongly for her, for her future, and then he goes back to tuning up the car.

Spencer shows up, and Bob isn’t even surprised anymore at the amount of misfit toys Pete and Brendon manage to gather around them. He _is_ surprised at the way Brendon looks at the kid, like he’s a fucking miracle. He hadn’t been expecting that.

Nor is he expecting it a week or so later, when he sees Spencer give Brendon the same look back. Part of his chest hurts for them; he almost wants to intervene, tell them _go for it, do it now, while you have time_ , but the more sensible part of him remains silent and watches and waits for an opportunity to be helpful.

He and Brendon usually have breakfast together at least once a week, and he makes a point to be down in the kitchen early one Sunday, frying eggs and bacon. He has a plan. It involves french toast. He thinks it’s pretty awesome.

When Brendon finally stumbles into the room, Bob just quirks an eyebrow up at him and slides a cup of coffee onto the counter where the kid usually sits. “Three or six eggs?” he asks, twirling his spatula masterfully.

Brendon yawns, and rubs his eyes. “Waffles?” he asks hopefully.

“Eggs. Three or six.”

Brendon sighs. “Three. Is there ketchup?”

“You are not murdering my eggs with ketchup,” Bob informs him, cracking shells on the edge of the pan.

“Technically when they hit my plate, they’re my eggs,” Brendon retorts, a smile starting to form on his lips. Bob’s mouth quirks a little, but he keeps his head down.

“If I’m making them for you, they’re _my_ eggs, motherfucker. No ketchup on my eggs.” Bob can’t help grinning a little at Brendon’s pout. “Or on the french toast,” he adds after a moment. He snickers at the victory arms Brendon throws up, and then orders him to start another pot of coffee.

He doesn’t broach the subject until Brendon is full and happy and laced with caffeine. And even then, he only raises his eyebrows and takes a long sip from his mug and says “So. You and the vampire kid.”

Brendon blushes _vermillion_ and can’t stop the gushing and anxieties from falling out of his mouth. Bob tilts his head and listens silently, to the litany of Spencer’s attributes and the equally long list as to why Brendon doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell.

“...and he likes _Aladdin_. Like, he sang the words to A Whole New World when we watched it,” Brendon sighs, slowing down a little, the smile that _was_ on his face starting to fade. “When I asked him, he said it was his sisters’ favorite.”

Bob nods. He heard the kid’s story from Pete.

“I kind of,” Brendon starts, beginning to frown, his eyebrows starting to knit together, “...I kind of want to find the ones who did that to him and his family?” he says, looking up at Bob for some sort of absolution. “I want to just. Find them and stake the _fuck_ out of them. Like swiss fucking cheese. But made out of vampires. I want to find everything in the world that ever hurt him or _will_ ever hurt him and destroy it all.”

The worried, almost _scared_ look Brendon gives him at that makes Bob stare down at his plate for a moment or two, as he’s shaken by the familiarity of it. “Yeah, I know,” he murmurs. “It’s scary,” he assures Brendon, “knowing you’d pretty much do anything to keep one person happy. And safe,” he adds. “Safe is a big one.”

“Tell me about it,” Brendon huffs, taking a long sip of his coffee.

Bob almost smiles at that, suddenly thinking of all the stories about _before_ that he could tell Brendon. About spraypainting BL/ind buildings at four in the morning, looking out for patrol cars. About impromptu radio stations and fixing the starter on the Trans Am when it would go out every other week, and about Frank’s weird, contagious laugh, and about Mikey always making _ptchoo, ptchoo, ptchoo_ sounds with his ray gun even while they were in the middle of a shootout. He could tell Brendon about punching Ray in the arm repeatedly to distract him from the shrapnel that Dr. D was having to dig out of his thigh. Or about the time they all got lost in the desert for four days straight and Bob had to bind Gerard’s ankles to keep him from running off after a hallucination of a coyote that he kept insisting was his _spirit animal_.

He could tell Brendon about Gerard. About taking most of Gerard’s shifts as watchman while they were on overnights, just so he could make sure Gee got _some_ sleep and didn’t go around looking like he’d got socked in both eyes the next morning. About learning how to dye hair for him. About the time they went off, the two of them, and found an old strip mall half-buried in the desert sand. Gerard had found the Party Poison jacket and Bob had pushed them both down the aisles of the abandoned thrift store in a shopping cart and then they’d come back to HQ and found out there’d been an ambush. Three weeks later, Dr. D came back to them in a chair.

He could tell Brendon that Gerard threw his head back when he laughed, _really_ laughed, and it was the best thing Bob’s ever seen. He could tell him about how _fucking difficult_ it is to dye black hair red and actually make it red. He could tell Brendon that the ache of wanting to make everything better, make everything good for them will never go away, even when _they_ do. He could tell Brendon a _lot_.

He kind of wants to.

  
-

  
When the two asshole kids he catches breaking and entering turn out to be Spencer’s friends, Bob feels a little quake of fear for the both of them and the fragile thing between them, and watches Brendon carefully. He spends a lot more time in the kitchen and the garage because he can’t really deal with Brendon shrinking back so visibly, or the helpless looks Spencer sometimes gives him.

Despite his misgivings, and the bruise on his hand from where Ryan tried to _bite_ him, Bob tries to be kind to Ryan and Jon when they turn out to be extended family. He makes them a lot of sandwiches. It’s kind of nice to have someone other than himself and Brendon to mess around in the kitchen for.

He hears rumblings about Ryan and Jon being picked up after a few days, but at first it seems like it’s not something he really needs to be concerned with. But _then_ he hears the rumor that Spencer’s going back with them. And then Brendon doesn’t go to his classes the next day and Bob starts to get legitimately worried.

He corners Spencer the next day, when Spencer’s warming up his breakfast blood and Bob’s trying to put together some sort of midnight snack without looking at what Spencer’s putting in the microwave.

“Spencer,” he manages, frowning confusedly when the kid turns to give him a surprised look. “You - everyone likes you here,” he manages lamely.

“Um, that’s good,” Spencer says, looking sort of bemused. “I really like everyone here.”

Bob frowns, and tries again. “People want you here, I mean.”

Spencer nods slowly. “I want to be here.”

“Good,” Bob says, feeling relief slowly suffusing through him. He breaks into a small smile, and nods his approbation. “You should always go where you’re wanted.”

  
That night, when he’s balled up under six different blankets and analyzing the whole conversation, Bob cringes at his last statement and debates smothering himself with a pillow. He hates _talking_.

More than that, he hates the idea that he’s stayed here because it’s where he’s wanted. That it’s the _only_ place he’s wanted, anymore.

  
-

  
The sunset is gorgeous the next night. Bob can’t take the anxious energy inside the Wentz household anymore; Brendon has fucked off to some remote corner of the house to be alone with his pain (probably the study - Bob heard piano music coming from its direction a while ago), and Ryan and Jon are tromping around being loud and bossy at each other as they pack their belongings, and Spencer - Bob doesn’t even know where Spencer is. Probably asleep. Or _trying_ to sleep and failing, and considering killing Ryan and Jon for it.

The point is, Bob has a beer and a beautiful sunset, all pink and purple shot through with _red_ , and he has a back porch and he’s damn well going to enjoy it. He alternates drags off the longneck and the cigarette in his other hand, and when they’re both done, Bob waits until the very last bit of red disappears from the horizon before he stands and starts back towards the house. Ryan and Jon’s ride will be here soon, and he wants to have a basket for them to take. Fuck knows Ryan could use the nourishment, he’s built like a goddamn _mosquito_.

  
He heard the spray and crunch of gravel and the slam of car doors, so he figures Ryan and Jon’s ride is here. He’s almost done, anyway - there’s a couple dozen ham-n-cheese and turkey sandwiches, and some small, tart apples, and a huge bag of trail mix stacked into an old, beat up cooler. He’s also managed to shove a six-pack of soda in there as well.

Grunting as he lifts it up, Bob stumbles up the stairs to the main foyer, and pauses to shift the cooler around in his hands, til it’s less bulky and not digging any corners into him. As soon as he manages to start walking again, Spencer shows up in the foyer, looking sort of determined. _Good_ , he thinks, and gives the kid a small smile.

Spencer smiles back. “Need some help?” he asks politely, though Bob can tell he’s got other places to be. Bob can’t help it, he snorts at the misplaced kindness, and shakes his head, and doesn’t stop walking.

“I’d check the study, if I were you,” he tells Spencer, his smile growing a little as he heads towards the door, his heart squeezing against his chest in a sudden upswell of hope for them.

  
-

  
He nearly drops the cooler.

Frank whoops first, throwing his arms up and then running up to tackle him into a hug, whacking him on the back dementedly. “Oh my _god_ , Bob. _Oh my god_. What the hell are you doing here? How long have you been here? _Holy shit_ , shit Ray, it’s - “

“Bob, yeah, I can see that,” Ray says, moving forward, looking just as stunned as Bob feels as he wraps both arms around him, _tight_ , and hangs on. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Bob manages after a minute, looking around at everyone else, taking in their shocked expressions. He pats Ray on the back gently, and looks even more alarmed when he realizes Ray’s... _shaking_ , kinda. He glances over and actually sees Mikey for the first time, and Mikey looks...fuck, Mikey looks fucking _freaked_.

“Where the hell have you - have you been _here_ the entire time?” Mikey asks, his voice a hoarse rasp. He runs a hand through his bleached-out hair and looks around wildly, first at Pete, who shrugs, and then back at Bob.

Bob ducks his head a little, sort of confused by the small ripples of anger and shame that float through him at that. “No,” he says clearly. “Korse caught me. I got out.” He stiffens and pulls away from Ray’s hug slowly, takes half a step back. “I walked.”

“You walked,” Frank repeats, still grinning, though he’s starting to give them all confused looks. “You _walked_ from Battery City to Vegas.”

“Well,” Bob amends, glancing over at Pete again, “I had some help.”

“Why didn’t you come back to Bakersfield?” Mikey asks, taking a couple of steps forward, reaching to take hold of Bob’s arm. Bob shies away, and gives him a wary look. “Bob.”

“Why didn’t you come to Battery City?” Bob counters. “Why didn’t you - why weren’t you there _with_ me when I got taken?” He folds his arms across his chest and frowns down at them. “Korse said they didn’t find _anything_ when they swept after they caught me. He said they - “

“Bob,” Frank cuts in, looking shocked and sort of desperate, “dude, Bob, _no_. We - there was a shootout, remember? You were trying to fix the fucking starter on the Trans Am and you - god, you got hit and they grabbed you before we even - “

“He said there weren’t even any _tire tracks_ ,” Bob reiterates, and fuck, his hands are starting to shake. He bends to set the cooler down, and when he straightens up, both Frank and Mikey are scowling at something behind them. Bob sighs, and has a sudden flash of how cold it always was in BL/ind, and that fucking porridge they always made him eat. He frowns. “That it was just me when they found me, that they didn’t even - “

“And you believed him?” a voice cuts through, and Bob stops and has to take a breath, rattled. He glances back towards the front door of the house, and considers making a run for it, because he really just - he doesn’t want to confront this. He takes a step back, even, but then Ray gets pushed aside and Mikey holds his hands up and moves back and then Gerard’s up in his face, his own expression twisted in anger, pointing a finger at Bob’s nose. “You _fucking believed him_?”

“You _weren’t there_ ,” Bob says, his throat feeling like it’s going to close up. Gerard looks - not the same, he looks fucking tired. His hair is the same color, but his mouth is thin and set, and there are the very beginnings of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “You didn’t come, either. I thought - “

“You thought we’d just _leave_ you there?” Gerard asks, his voice getting higher and more defensive. “You thought I’d - what, did you think we wouldn’t _care_?”

Bob’s hands clench into fists slowly, and his jaw clenches. He looks down at the ground and wishes like fuck that he’d never made those sandwiches for Ryan and Jon.

“You did,” Gerard says, moving his finger away from Bob’s face, his voice moving back down til it’s back in his regular register. He takes a step away, his fingertips coming to rest against his mouth, pressing in slightly. “Oh my god, you _did_.” He gestures towards Bob. “You thought we knew and didn’t care.”

Bob tenses, and glances down at the cooler beside his feet. “It’s not...” he starts, before he realizes he has no idea how he was planning on finishing that sentence and gives up. “I was just the mechanic,” he explains feebly. “And sometimes I blew shit up.”

“No, hey - “ Frank says, starting forward before Ray shoots an arm across his chest, barring his way. Bob glances over at them and feels intensely embarrassed for a few seconds, at having laid all his shit bare.

“Anyway, I got - “ he starts, but then Gerard is pushing two fingers in his chest, shoving him back a little, until Bob’s backed up against one of the columns framing the front door. “Hey, ow,” he grouses, reaching up to smack Gerard’s fingers away, pausing when he actually glances up and sees that - shit, Gerard looks _wrecked_.

“You are _not_ ,” Gerard hisses, pressing closer, “just the mechanic. You are not just - we wouldn’t...” and then he seems overcome, and has to cut his eyes away. His mouth is trembling a little, Bob notices, and then Bob feels like a complete shit. It takes a special kind of asshole to make Gerard _cry_.

“Hey,” he says, trying to modulate his voice towards ‘soothing’. “Hey, it’s all right.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Gerard squeaks, his voice breaking before he turns back to face Bob, his eyes bright with tears, and reaches for him, roughly shoving their mouths together.

Bob sucks in a breath, his eyes flying wide open for a second before he registers the way Gee’s pressing his lips frantically against Bob’s own and he starts to respond. Gerard’s _shaking_ , enough that Bob has to wrap both arms around him tightly, to try to hold him together. “Did you really think I would - “ Gerard keeps starting, interrupting his attempts at sentences by having to kiss him again. “You have _no idea_ how - “

“Sorry,” Bob gasps, sliding a hand up to cup the back of Gerard’s head, his fingers threading through red hair. “ _Fuck_ , Gee, I’m so - “

“Fuck _you_ , okay, I didn’t - we didn’t sleep for a _week_ , I made everybody keep looking, we couldn’t just - “

“Yeah, I get it, I - “

“You _stupid motherfucker_.” Gerard shudders and licks into Bob’s mouth and stays there, finally giving up on conversation in favor of twining around him as tight as he can and making out like teenagers. Bob’s all for it. He feels like one of his explosions.

He’s not really sure how long they stay like that, making out on the front stoop of Pete Wentz’s place. He can feel Gerard’s five o’clock shadow and the way that they’re swaying a little precariously, and he can taste the shitty diner coffee and cigarettes Gerard probably had for lunch and dinner.

Eventually, Gerard shivers and pulls back a little, brushing light kisses against the corners of Bob’s mouth before Bob can be persuaded to open his eyes again. Gerard’s gazing up at him, his eyes kind of glassy, and Bob can see the very beginnings of a smile on Gee’s mouth before his eyes flicker back down to Bob’s lips and he leans in again, just for a second, barely a press of warm lips to his.

Bob bites the corner of his own lip with his teeth to try to keep from grinning, and rubs Gerard’s back a little. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Gee mutters, pushing his hair behind his ear, looking sort of bashful suddenly. He glances up and grins when he notices Bob beaming at him, and has to press his nose into Bob’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

“Fucking - _you_ shut up, oh my god,” Frank crows from behind them, punching both Ray and Mikey on the arm in his enthusiasm. “That was the most adorable fucking thing I’ve ever seen. That was fucking...rainbows and puppies and _kittens_ and shit.”

“Your _face_ is rainbows and puppies and kittens and shit,” Mikey retorts, folding his arms and giving Frankie a _you can’t make fun of my brother_ glare.

Frank blinks at him. “Is that...wait, is that bad? That’s not bad,” he scoffs.

“Go to hell, Iero,” Bob says, flipping him off even as he tugs Gerard closer in. “Everything about your face is bad.” He gives Mikey a tiny smile in response to the thumbs-up Mikes shoots him. He can feel Gerard snickering softly against his shoulder and sort of tucking himself into Bob’s side, and it’s enough to make him start beaming.

“He’s just gotten worse since you’ve been gone,” Ray informs Bob sadly, gazing down at Frank. “You were the only calming influence he had.”

“Hey!”

“I can see that,” Bob says, shooting Frank a quelling look. He glances back down at Gerard, who’s graduated from pressing his nose against Bob’s shoulder to nuzzling against his neck comfortably, and Bob closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep, grateful breath before he continues. “I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to rehabilitate your ass, Frankie.”

Gerard’s arms squeeze _tight_ around his middle, and both Ray and Mikey break into identical grins. Frank pulls a pretend pout, but then glances over at Gerard and gives Bob a wink and a covert thumbs-up.

Bob glances over to where Pete and Patrick and Ashlee are still standing, shocked, on the other side of the doorway. “Um,” he says, suddenly at a loss for words.

“Dude,” Pete says, sounding sort of awed. “Dude, _you’re_ the Lost Killjoy?”

“Apparently,” Bob shrugs. “Um. ...Look, would you mind if I - “

“Oh, shut up,” Patrick huffs, stepping in. “You’re fired, Bob,” he smirks. “Go on.”

“Thank you,” Bob says, biting his lip. He still has yet to let go of Gerard - he’s thinking that’s probably going to be a bit of a problem, as he doesn’t really see himself letting go any time soon. He bends down for the cooler and then shuffles with it and Gerard down to the van, sliding the side door open and saying hey to Dr. D and Show Pony and offering them some sandwiches. Gerard, seduced by the siren call of turkey on wheat, finally detaches and gestures for Bob to go say his goodbyes.

He feels weird, surreal, kind of untethered to the ground as he walks back up to Pete and Patrick and Ash. “Um,” he mumbles, looking down at his feet. “Tell the boys I said bye? And thank you.”

Ashlee breaks and moves towards him first, tackling him in a long, _hard_ squeeze that almost has him wheezing. He pats her shoulder gently and hugs both Pete and Patrick in turn, thanking them quietly, offering safe houses and places to stay, should they ever find themselves in the Killjoys’ neck of the woods.

“Man, I can’t believe it was you,” Pete says, grinning his too-wide grin again as he’s walking Bob back to the Trans Am. “All the times I heard Mikey talk about you, and it was _you_.”

“Yeah,” Bob says, ducking his head and laughing softly. “Oops.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs a shoulder.

“Fucking awesome, dude,” Pete pronounces, looking up at the night sky and then back down at the work van and Trans Am. He gives Bob a crooked, winsome smile, and then seems to think of something. “Hey, what was your name? Or, uh, what _is_ your name? They’d never say it.”

“Oh, um.” Bob blushes, and rubs the back of his head. “Bullet Proof?”

Pete tilts his head. “I like it,” he decides. “It fits. All right, Bullet Proof, we’ll see you later.”

Bob nods, and moves toward the car, pointing at Frank and ordering him in the back. “I’m driving, Iero. Scoot over, Gee.” He doesn’t miss the way they all raise their eyebrows at each other, but fuck it, he’s gotten used to driving. He likes it.

The Trans Am roars to life under his feet, and Bob takes a moment and a deep breath before he adjusts all the mirrors and the seat. He waits for Frankie to yell for Ryan and Jon to get in the damn van, and then he refuses to go _anywhere_ until everyone puts their seat belts on. When he finally throws it into reverse, the car fairly leaps to life.

Frank and Mikey fill him in on what’s happening with baby girl lately, and Ray mentions a couple highlights of plans in the offing. The roads leading away from Vegas open up into desert and black sky. Gerard shifts and fidgets and almost knocks the car out of gear before he manages to negotiate the bucket seats well enough to nestle down beside him, his head halfway resting on Bob’s shoulder. He moves an arm around Gerard’s waist and holds tight, keeping him steady.

Beside him, Gerard’s humming quietly, soft snippets of songs. He can feel the warmth of Gee’s skin under his hand, and he can hear Frank and Ray bickering in the back seat, and see Mikey grinning back at him in the rearview mirror.

With the T-top down, Bob can look up and see every single star shining high above them, as pale and bright as the double lines leading him home.


End file.
